Applications and Implementation DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT FOR DECISION MAKING

A laboratory experiment examined the effects of applying decision support system (DSS) technology to decision making in ill-structured problem environments under varying information conditions. Marketing executives participated in the experiment which investigated the effects of DSS availability, DSS training, and data availability on dependent variables that included: (1) the number of alternatives considered by a subject during decision making, (2) the period of time spent by a subject to complete the decision-making process, (3) the subject's perceived confidence in the decisions he or she had made, (4) the amount of data considered by a subject's during decision making, (5) the individual subject's decision processing, and (6) the subject's performance overall. Our results indicate that all three factors significantly affect the number of alternatives considered by subjects during the decision-making process. We therefore suggest that DSS training be coordinated with decision training in order to realize the potential of DSSs as described in the DSS literature.     

Development and evaluation of the abortion attributes questionnaire

This paper describes the development and evaluation of the Abortion Attributes Questionnaire (AAQ), an instrument designed to assess the perceived importance of specific characteristics of abortion methods. Women receiving medical abortions ( n = 186) and women who chose surgical procedures ( n = 118) completed the AAQ. Participants were asked to rate how important each of 21 characteristics would be "when choosing between surgical and medical abortion." Factor analyses revealed that the AAQ consists of four factors and, as subscales, the factors have good internal reliability. The validity of the AAQ was established through discriminant function analysis and results indicated that three of the four factors predicted choice. Taken together, these findings provide empirical support for the constructs measured by the AAQ .     

Assessing multiple prior models of behaviour under ambiguity

The recent spate of theoretical models of behaviour under ambiguity can be partitioned into two sets: those involving multiple priors and those not involving multiple priors. This paper provides an experimental investigation into the first set. Using an appropriate experimental interface we examine the fitted and predictive power of the various theories. We first estimate subject-by-subject, and then estimate and predict using a mixture model over the contending theories. The individual estimates suggest that 24% of our 149 subjects have behaviour consistent with Expected Utility, 56% with the Smooth Model, 11% with Rank Dependent Expected Utility and 9% with the Alpha Model; these figures are close to the mixing proportions obtained from the mixture estimates where the respective posterior probabilities of each of them being of the various types are 25%, 50%, 20% and 5%; and using the predictions 22%, 53%, 22% and 3%. The Smooth model appears the best.     

The Dehumanization of Man: Dimensions and Processes

This paper is concerned with the dimensions and processes of dehumanization within the context of our contemporary social order. It considers briefly the nature of post-industrial society and its dehumanizing consequences, discussing the various dimensions of dehumanization articulated by various writers. The core argument is that dehumanization is created by external social structural conditions and only later becomes internally self-generating within the individual, which can lead to a self-perpetuating dehumanization syndrome.     

Over-chastisement, Child Non-compliance and Parenting Skills: A Behavioural Interventiaon by a Family Centre Social Worker

Summary This single-case study describes a behavioural interventionby a Family Centre social worker with a family whose two eldestchildren had been registered on the Child Protection Registerfollowing an incident of over-chastisement by their mother.Working in partnership with the parents. a behavioural assessmentand intervention was undertaken over a four month periood. Theassessment suggested that child non-compliance was a centralproblem behaviour and that mother and child were caught in atrap where each negatively reinforced the other's aversive,coercive behaviour, since these behaviours were successful interminating the other's unwanted or aversive behaviours. Theintervention aimed to increase child compliance and reduce childdefiance using a positive reinforcement programme, and to increasethe mother's child management skills using a parent trainingprogramme. The results showed that child compliance with maternalinstructions increased significantly and that this was maintainedat eleven month follow-up. Also, mother's use of command negativedecreased significantly; this improvement was also maintainedat eleven month follow-up.     

School Size and the Interpersonal Side of Education: An Examination of Race/Ethnicity and Organizational Context*

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to extend research on the connection between school size and student outcomes by examining how school size was related to interpersonal processes and whether the interpersonal effects of school size varied by race/ethnicity. Methods. We applied multilevel modeling techniques to a sample of 14,966 students in 84 schools from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Results. Increasing school size was associated with decreasing student attachment to school and to teachers as well as extracurricular participation. Student attachment and teacher bonding diminished with increasing school size at a decreasing rate (reaching minimums in schools with between 1,700–2,000 students), but extracurricular participation dropped at a steady rate. These patterns did not differ substantially by race/ethnicity. Conclusions. The size of the educational institution influences interpersonal dynamics among actors in the institution and does so similarly across student groups. More generally, this research demonstrates the importance of organizational characteristics for social life.     

Relations Between Alphabetized Name Order and Nomination Counts in Peer Nomination Measures

Peer nominations, a central method for measuring peer relationships in developmental research, typically involve asking children or adolescents to choose peers who fit various criteria from an alphabetized roster of classmates or grade‐mates. Although such measures have been used for decades, very little research has investigated the effects of alphabetical name order on the number of nominations received by peers. This study collected peer nominations for 20 items among 607 eighth grade participants in two schools. Regression analyses showed that earlier name order significantly predicted higher nomination counts for eight of the items, and explained over 5 percent of the variance in four affective variables (friendship, acceptance, acquaintanceship, and received liking). Across variables, name order effects were negatively correlated with internal reliability of nominations, implying that order effects may be related to the consensus of the peer group. Name order also had a minimal effect on inter‐correlations among a subset of variables. Implications and concrete recommendations for controlling and reducing name order effects in future research are discussed.